Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

[Kazzer]

Good points about the twin pack materials Andy. There are numerous materials around that will do this sort of work, and I'd suggest a trip to your local auto parts store, like NAPA or Halfords. Ask for a cream type material that will fill small depressions, final finishing etc. These special pastes are extemely creamy, like soft butter and they have no solvent in them. There are some creams around that are solvent drying, but you will end up waiting a long time for them to dry out. I thought we had one in our Evercoat range, but as I haven't personally used all of them, I'm not sure.

[Slats]

The scale and sheer size of this thing will make an imposing presence. I cannot wait to harangue my home fleet with this beast's 8 tubes. The hull size will afford heaps of flexibility for a suite of goodies inside.

J

[Subculture]

I use the U-pol brand here in the UK. The main filler I use is easylite, which is nice and easy to sand and spread- just the right consistency for modelmaking. I use 3M acryl red, which is a single part air dry putty for touch-up and hairline filling jobs, comes in a big toothpaste type tube.

For very strong filling jobs, or if I need to fashion a 'point', I use Milliput super fine white. Drys rock hard and tough and has a very long shelf life. My sticks are years old- I only use tiny amounts of milliput, which is just as well as the stuff is £££- and they still kick okay.

[ManOwaR]

Alright,
I got some bona-fide new work done on this model today while I was waiting for primer and filler to dry on the hull plug. I found some more low spots because I’ve been trying a firmer backer for my block sander. I went this way because looking at the plug from certain angles I could still see some nasty imperfections that my initial guide coat didn’t pick up. I figured it was my foam backer and lo and behold, I was right.
Anyways, I started out on the sail and things are going pretty good with that. I am making the sail in multiple stages. Build the base sail (no fillet, no cap), make a mould of that part, add negative detailing to the mould (anechoic coating bevelling), make a reproduction of the base with a very heavy surface coating for scribing and also make it so it will be hollow. From there, add a cap and then the front fillet. I’ll describe this better when we get to each part.
Creating the base was started by taking a perfectly square piece of Renshape and CA gluing cut-outs of the sail shape both side and top. The bottom of the sail is not perfectly straight because of its teardrop shape that follows the curing hull. I cut this line using my scroll saw and then temporarily hot melt glued it back into place. I ensured that my table for my disc sander was absolutely square in relation to the sanding disk. I hot melted the side of the Renshape block to my square let cool and went at removing material knowing that what I was doing was square. When the material from one side was removed I moved the square to the other side of the sail. This is pretty much the same thing I did on my Permit...might as well because it works very well.
Then its filling and priming time


Joel

[ManOwaR]

The Pictures

[Kazzer]

Today, I had the chance to use some Evercoat EasySand Not for a submarine project, but the staircase stringers in my new (old) house. They had lots of nail holes, and 30 years of dings and scrapes from furniture removals etc. (One day, I'll finish this joint and get a boat going again! Goddamit!)

I gave them a coat of primer and boy did they look rough. Some of the depressions were only 'bruises' but never the less, under a gloss coat, they would look like a badger's ass. Of course, they were also chunks missing that needed repair.
I rummaged around in the garage and found, quite by accident, (we know where nothing is in this dump at the moment) found a tube of this goop. I was in a hurry too, so in no mood to hang around waiting for single pack **** to dry.

A squeeze of the tube produced a gob of material toothpaste like, except that it slumped slowly, rather like milk fed puppy ****. I mixed some peroxide hardener in and went to work with a metal spatula. Boy! Is this stuff good! Creamy, smooth, wet enough to grab any surface and non slumping on vertical surfaces. Of course, I wasn't applying it more than 1/8" thick and feathering it to a razor edge with the blade. I used a wide blade and scraped it on so I got it on almost perfectly. 15 minutes later, I ran over it quickly with a block and sandpaper and it was done.

It would be very easy to apply this material to a curved surface using a flat plastic applicator and bending it over the curve as you drag it along.

[Outrider]

Lots of colorful language here...but nothing to get all worked up about. It's just some putty and it seems, underneath all the scatology, to do exactly what you want it to do. (Which isn't exactly on point for the Seawolf discussion here, now is it?)

Not sure the Wizard would approve of a double standard for salty talk. I'm sure he got his ear bent a few times before the pink shorts came out, but not too many.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

YEAH!

What he just said!!!

No Justice, no peace!

David,

[ManOwaR]

Sail Part 2

Rocking and rollin’ away on this Seawolf...We’re starting to get a nice pace on her. Not breakneck, but not nothing like before, lol!
A full day and a half was spent on plug surface preparation getting it ready for intermediate moulding. No detailing has been applied as it’s much easier to polish the plug if you don’t have to worry about wrecking that stuff. The same procedure was used here as was used multiple times on the Permit/Jack project.



Now because I want to do intermediate mould-work at the same time I am working hard on the sail. Probably one of the more complex shapes on this submarine is the fillet on the front of the sail that serves as streamlining and helps counter the snap roll phenomenon.
I use the same technique as before with the basic shape:
I glue the side view part of the plan to a carefully squared up piece of Renshape. I’ll cut the bottom, back and front off carefully using the scroll saw on slow, then hot melt it all back together.





I then glue the top profile of the fillet on – care was taken to get it perfectly aligned with the side profile location.



Now I have the basic shape...


On to enabling myself to fit this part properly. I’ll adhere the top-down profile to some cereal box cardboard, and then the bottom of the side profile to some very thick, rigid cardboard. I love cardboard; it’s cheap and plentiful building material. I liked using it as a kid to make laminated finger skateboards and cardboard half pipes to sell them for exorbitant prices to my friends!



The sail Is hot melted to the top-down profile, and then this is hot melted to the bottom profile. Remember, the sail will not be perfectly flat against the round hull. Only when it is hollow will it fit right, therefore the bottom will have a kind of funny look to it for now.





The fit of the fillet was pretty good right off the get-go. Only a little sanding was needed to get the fit right.



Once fit, I taped off the line that will represent the slight demarcation between the sail and the fillet. Tamiya tape was used here, cut into very thin slices.




Looking at lots of pictures of the fillet shape for reference, I simply used sandpaper to sculpt the rough shape.




More to come,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

The work on the sail continues...
Today's work has been on refining the fillet shape along with some body work. Also, the cap has commenced construction. Note that there is a gap around the whole thing when placed on the sail. this is to accomodate the special coating beveling. Care is taken here to ensure that the demarcation line between the sail and fillet is consistent using masking tape as a depth guide when sanding.


Check out this comparison between the Permit sail and Seawolf. I can't wait to actually have room to work on the scope rack for this model!



Joel

[Slats]

Very nice Joel, that comparision is kind of scary (to Permit).
Got the plans a couple of days back, -yes know they have conjecture - but nice for some basics.
This will cap off my sub fleet.

Best
J

[ManOwaR]

You know what else is scary? If I would have made the wolf from mdf...I picked up the Permit plug the other day to move it (which is made from mdf) and was shocked. I bet the wolf would weigh around 100 pounds if I made it from that stuff!

Joel

[ManOwaR]

Intermediate moulds

Ok, on to the intermediate moulds.

There are a couple of reasons for doing intermediate moulds for this model. The first, is to give myself some final plug moulds that have a scribe-able surface. The second, is to produce to produce two hull halves..much easier to apply details to and to ensure everything is flush and perpendicular of parallel in comparison to the central horizontal axis, very hard to do with a sewer pipe that has to constantly be moved around to access opposite points. This lesson was learned from doing both styles with Permit and Jack. The third reason is to allow for molded in indentations that will be used to represent the rubber coating beveling and such, but I'll get into that later when its time.

I had to make a parting board so i could split the plug in two. Pretty basic, just some particle board ripped down on my table saw with a hardboard top surface glued and stapled to the retangular shape. I cut out my plans and traced the shape to the hardboard then cut it out with my jigsaw. This cutout gave me my first true comparison of the hull shape to the actual print, and the results are great, but as my buddies in Megadeth are prone to say; "So Far, So Good...So what!".

The plug itself was held in place at its mid-point marks using modeling clay, and any small gaps between the parting board and the hull were filled with clay as well. Once in place, the plug was well waxed and a layer of PVA was applied. The classic parting/release agent combo. This time around I am experimenting with BJB 1571 epoxy surface coat as my first initial layer before fiberglass. Not a necessity, but I like to try new products all the time to give myself a good knowledge base as to what would work the best for certain applications. In this case, we have a very heavy product; I think it is aluminum filled and very thick and sticky. The only way to get it to mixing viscosity was to heat the can up in hot water in my sink, mix the part B in very fast with my drill mixer and then trowel the stuff on with a Bondo applicator, not much pot life in epoxy when you warm it up to the temp I had it, but I worked quickly and systematically and got 'er on. It looks like it'll do the job, but we will see when I pull the moulds off.

Lamination of the subsequent fiberglass layers was done using stuff from my big cutoff bag and West System epoxy using fast hardener (I can use the fast because my heater broke down in my garage, so it's nice and cool in there!). I am using epoxy because I want total, absolute reproduction fidelity...no shrinkage and warpage wanted at this cat's garage! Final layers were built up using woven roven which is a good, strong cheap high build up fiberglass. I am not going as thick as my normal moulds because I want a fair amount of flex in this mould for release purpose, plus I dont have to worry about damaging any detailing because there isn't any yet.

Lots more coming,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

Intermediate moulds part 2

Continuing on with these el-cheapo moulds (cheap compared to what I project the final ones will cost)
The original plan before, was to do one single half mould and then from that, makes the two final plug halves. I changed my mind though; I want the piece of mind knowing that the two halves will mate together perfectly, and I think things will be faster if I have access to both halves in parallel instead of doing them in tandem.
Before doing the top layup, I had to do a little chiselling of some errant epoxy and residual modeling clay. A super sharp chisel is the order of the day, and being careful not to scratch the hull is the only way. Note the 2” flexible Styrofoam used as legs for the mould halves. I will stiffen them up with fibreglass after the plug is removed.
Here’s the top halves laid up and now I’m just waiting for curing. They should be good to go for next weekend for starting the detailing.





OMG!! Do I ever have to clean my garage!!

Joel

[Slats]

Very nice Joel, and yeah agree, doesn't the shop dirty up fast with gear and stuff everywhere after a good session.

J